Evaluation of the impact of The Push-Up Challenge

Project Details

The Push for Better Foundation aims to engage and educate people in mental and physical health, to raise awareness of the mental health issues affecting everyday Australians and encourage actions everyone can take for better mental health. They focus on the prevention and early intervention of depression, anxiety and suicide. Their flagship event is The Push-Up Challenge - the largest fitness-based mental health event in Australia. Held every year, participants download an app, commit to daily exercise targets and receive information on how to improve their mental and physical health, how to reach out for help if they need it and how to support others.

This evaluation aims to assess the impact of The Push-Up Challenge on participants’ mental health literacy, help-seeking behaviours, and supportive actions. It will explore whether participation improves mental health knowledge, intentions to seek help or support others, exercise participation, social connection, and resilience, and whether these changes are influenced by the level of participation. The approach involves reviewing existing data, developing a program logic model, conducting a pre-post study with baseline, post-challenge, and six-month follow-up assessments, and interviewing 15–20 participants. Findings will be summarised in interim and final reports, contextualised within Australia’s mental health promotion landscape, over a 12-month collaboration with The Push for Better Foundation.

Researchers

Professor Nicola Reavley (Project Lead)
nreavley@unimelb.edu.au
+61 3 9035 7628

Funding

The Push for Better Foundation